Being Polite
by Starzki
Summary: An outsider having a bad day finds out that it can only get worse as she witnesses a confrontation between Vicious and Spike.


Disclaimer: I don't own any part of CB, and I am not profiting from this in any monetary way.

A/N: I am very new to Cowboy Bebop. I stumbled across the movie completely by accident, but I was hooked. This is my first attempt at any CB fanfic. Therefore, I thought that a completely outside point of view would be most appropriate, especially since, when I wrote this, I had not seen all of the episodes yet. I love the character of Vicious and how he interacts with Spike. So after I had an especially hard day, I thought up a few ways I could have had it harder. This was the result.

Being Polite: My Effing Bad Day

* * *

By Starzki

In my entire life I could not remember a worse day. Sure, news of death and change had made for some sad ones, but those tended to spread themselves across a lifetime. I could not remember when so many little inconveniences and bigger harassments had joined forces to make me wish I had never gotten out of bed that morning.

I had given up. I was calling it a day, retreating back to my small studio apartment where I could lick my wounds, go to sleep, and pretend it was all a bad dream. The elevated train clicked and clattered along as I tried, in spite of my recent injuries, to get comfortable in the seat in the nearly empty car.

That was another thing. I either like empty cars or cars that were semi-full. In the city, crowds could be counted on for safety from the more overt crimes where being nearly alone could only be bad. It was times like these that I almost hated being a girl. No, strike that. It was times like these that I hated that other people were guys.

My two car-mates were guys that definitely gave off some kind of criminal aura. The man nearest to me, two seats in front of me, across the aisle and sitting in the seats facing in, seemed to seethe and stew in a kind of malicious glee. He was tall and thin, dressed completely in black, trench coat and everything, and had shaggy white hair that hid much of his face. One blue eye stared out fixedly at the sign across from him, a poster promising pregnant girls "choices." He seemed to be smiling inwardly, entertaining thoughts of torturing bunnies and puppies. What a shame, I thought. He wasn't that bad looking.

I could not say, or think, the same think about the other man in the car. While Criminal #1 was content to let me be and fantasize all on his lonesome, Criminal #2, or Gross Guy, was intent on having me be a player in whatever vulgar exploits he was concocting. Gross Guy was filthy. I don't mean dirty. I was dirty from the grime and soil of the city streets I had so recently become close personal friends with. Gross Guy was filthy. Whatever colors his clothes had started out as (I was guessing khaki-colored pants, light blue and pink striped shirt, and olive green jacket); they were now a uniform brown. My guess is that they were stained so badly that any attempt to remove the dirt would cause the clothes to disintegrate because it had become so incorporated into the fabric. Gross Guy was also impossibly thin, the kind of thin that only comes with an eating disorder or disease. I could smell the von of sweat and sickness from 20 feet away. The whites of his eyes were yellow, as were his teeth, from which dry, cracking lips pulled back to expose.

Gross Guy was staring at me. He was leering at me. He began working his liver-colored tongue out over his teeth to wet his broken lips. The way that my day was going, I knew exactly what he was about to do next.

I refused to look Mr. Filthy in the face, but I was smart enough not to take my eyes off of him, so I focused on the second button of his stained shirt. Because of this, I knew that he had begun mouthing obscenities at me, but I refused to decipher them. Anger began to build and roil inside of me. There are 7 stages of grief. There must be 7 stages of Bad Day, starting with grief, moving to annoyance, back to grief, to disbelief, to making deals, to what I can only describe as the deepest homicidal anger I had ever felt towards a stranger. I wondered what was next in the stages because I knew that I was not home free yet. This day _could_ get worse.

It sure could. Gross Guy rose to his feet. He was so tall, his light urine-colored hair that floated sparsely around his head seemed to nearly touch the ceiling. Hands ending in long yellow fingernails gripped the bars and seats as he made his way past Criminal #1 towards me. I inwardly groaned. A confrontation would be inevitable. I knew I should have just gotten off at the last station. The next one was too many minutes away.

Always polite, I had taken the seat near the window and held my belongings on my lap for when the car stared filling up so that others could sit. Today, I regretted this as a mistake.

Mr. Filthy slid into the seat next to me. I pretended to ignore him and looked out the window at what, for other people, looked like a very nice night. All I could think at the time was, "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. I'm about to be molested."

Gross Guy propped his arm up around the back of my seat and leaned in toward me. His breath literally made my eyes water. The whole smell of him reminded me of when I worked long hot days in the clinic by the hospital as the receptionist. He smelled of garbage and disease. His breath was like rotting fish. I suppressed a gag.

"Girly, girly, pretty girly," he whispered. His breath became ragged as he reached across to pet my leg.

"Don't touch me," I said as calmly as I could, ice coating my every word. I stole a glance at my other companion in the car. He was watching with a kind of uninterested curiosity. He wasn't going to help, wasn't going to hinder. He was just going to be entertained. What a little shit. The world became a pinpoint of vision surrounded by white, blinding anger. I tensed.

Gross Guy ran his hand up my thigh to my waist. "So…soft…" he sputtered. I wanted to vomit. I tried squirming, trying to get closer to the window. Dear God, just let this day end! I could see the train car as if from very far away. My head was swimming in red hatred and anger.

"Take your goddam hands offa me," I hissed at the man as his hands fumbled underneath my shirt. I squirmed to face him in spite of the pain in my legs. I tasted the bitter adrenaline of fear and repulsion. The announcement came over the elevated train's loudspeaker that we were nearly to the next stop. No matter what, I would be getting off.

Gross Guy's hands clamped down on my chest, his long nails biting at and nicking my skin. I gasped and lashed out. Although the memory of it, visually at least, was cloudy, the stress of the situation forever burned some aspects of the encounter into my memory.

The final straw was the man's ecstatic, "Squishy!" I remember hearing the dull crack of Gross Guy's nose as my hand shot out. I could remember the greasy feel of his face as the heel of my hand made contact. I remember the screaming, tearing pain in my legs as I pistoned myself out of my seat, arms on my seatback and the seatback in front of me. The pain continued as my foot shot up at the reeling man and made full hard contact with his stomach.

Gross Guy retched and fell backward into the seat across the aisle. Blood ran out of his nose as he moaned and sputtered in shocked surprise. Standing in the aisle now, steadying myself to the lurch of the slowing train, I took the only cheap shot I had ever taken in my life. I brought my foot up and slammed it down in Mr. Filthy's groin with all of the force and ferocity I could muster.

I tuned to gather my things and exit the train to Gross Guy's howls and shrieks of pain. It didn't bring me happiness to hear him hurt. I was just too tired. What a frickin' day, I thought. It was only made longer now that I had to wait for the next train to come along.

I exited the train with Criminal #1 on my heels. At least I had gotten away from one of them. I sighed, feeling completely exhausted as the adrenaline left my blood stream, reabsorbed by my body. I was never going to make it home.

Criminal #1 was pinning me with his stare and openly grinning at me. Not again, I prayed. I pretended ignorance at the weight of his look and pressed my lips together for a half smile/half grimace that I knew wouldn't reach my eyes and looked away. But I positioned myself against the wall and kept Mr. Bad Boy in my peripheral vision.

Suddenly, from above, I heard a crying caw as a huge black bird, some kind of crow or vulture or hawk, alit on the shoulder of the imposing white-haired man. It seemed to fit, I thought hilariously. The sheer badness of the day was becoming more amusing than anything else.

We stood in the silence of the empty train station for a couple of minutes. The tingling pain was returning to my legs and I craved some kind of anti-inflammatory in pill form. Then I remembered that I was completely out at home. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. But something inside of me found the predicament funny and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. I rolled my eyes at myself. I heard a low grumbling coming from The Criminal. It was a couple of seconds before I realized that he was talking to me. Ok, I thought, let's see where this goes.

"Pardon me?" I asked, ever so politely.

"You did well with the letch. And I'm rarely impressed." His voice was impossibly low and dripped with razor blades. God save me from bad boys.

"Oh," was all I could think to reply. Were we having a conversation? Should I say something back? I honestly didn't want to know anything about him. I smiled at myself. It's so hard to shake 20 years of ingrained politeness. "You followed me," I stated in a way that was almost a question.

A very low and quiet growling sound came from the man again and I strained my ears to catch what he was saying. "…stay on the train with that mess. It's important that I keep a low profile."

Great. He probably had a warrant out for him. I wondered what for. I wouldn't have put anything past him. "Sorry," I managed and lightly kicked at an imaginary stone on the ground in front of me.

We stood in silence for another 5 minutes. This time of night, it would be almost another 5 to 10 minutes until the next train came. Exhaustion was beginning to claim me. I felt nauseous and my head ached whenever my eyes were open.

A turnstile to our left clanged another train passenger onto the platform. Mr. Bad Ass's bird squawked. Another tall man was striding up to us holding out his hand. Although I didn't see it at the time, I knew, just by how my luck was going that day, that he was holding a gun. "Shit," I sighed.

An arm grabbed me across the front of my shoulders and I was pinned against The Criminal, his human shield. I'm not that observant, but I could tell that whoever had just entered the scene was no cop. The Criminal's bird squawked and flapped its wings to watch whatever unfolded from the rafters. It had a huge wingspan and one of the beats before it took off hit me squarely in the right eye. Some dirt or bird dandruff or something from one of its feathers lodged itself beneath my contact. My eye watered and I brought up my right hand and began rubbing at it furiously. First things first. Establish vision, then decide what to do about my predicament.

As the pain in my eye began to ease, I felt hot stickiness running down my right arm. Although my vision was still blurry, I could see and smell blood running down my right forearm. Mr. Bad Ass Jerkoff had, I kid you not, a frickin' samurai sword out, blade across my neck. I had rubbed against the sharp blade as I rubbed my eye. It was so sharp, there was no pain in my arm and the cuts were only superficial anyway. Remember what I had said about being unobservant? How did I miss a gigantic sword on this guy? An unreality took over, a kind of disassociation. I was, for the most part, only amused and curious as to what was happening, like I had stumbled across a late night TV show already in progress where the characters seemed engaging, but I had no clue as to the context of the situation.

Jackoff Jim and The New Guy were trading barbs, growling at each other through similar grins. The New Guy didn't even seem to register that I was there. As their conversation had nothing to do with me, I didn't listen, and just examined my situation like it was an installation of macabre modern art.

Facing me was another tall, thin man in this day of mine, but different from his two predecessors. His posture was slouched, very relaxed. I noticed I was pretty relaxed myself. I had used up all of the adrenaline in my body and was gentle as a lamb through utter exhaustion. Guy With Gun merrily looked over my right shoulder at my captor with happy brown eyes that flashed with amusement. He looked like an 8-year-old who had just tagged the other guy "It."

It being late, the sodium lights of the platform were on. Gun Guy's dark hair reflected an interesting green hue in these lights. I looked down at my own hair as it rested on my shoulder and noticed that it also reflected greenish. Weird, I thought, feeling the hysterical giggles bubbling up from my stomach. I forced a frown on my face to suppress them. I had to admit, this new guy was cute. Maybe it was the whole damsel in distress thing, maybe it was the easy-going glee he seemed to exude, or maybe it was the striking resemblance he had to an ex of mine, but I found him really attractive.

"…find me?" demanded Sword Guy. I began to tune into this conversation in the chance that I, the hostage, would become a future topic.

Gun Guy flipped something circular and plastic in his non-gun-holding hand. "Edgar's new bracelet has a tracker," he indicated, nodding up to the rafters above us. I smiled at my own thought, Quoth the raven… "I thought I would take the initiative for this next meeting. I'm tired of waiting by the phone hoping you would call to ask for a date."

"Are you ready?" hissed Sword Guy. "We can end this now." He drew the blade closer to my throat. "Without the audience."

"I'm really not in a rush, Vicious. We can settle this by ourselves."

"Just what I plan to do." I felt the blade hot against the skin under my jaw. Fear did not claim me. An uncanny lack of surprise at what seemed to be the end of my day made the sides of my lips turn up into a smile at the man with the gun.

He seemed to notice me for the first time since coming in. He looked slightly confused at my smile. I couldn't help it, I winked at him. I guess it was a kind of tacit forgiveness. I'd have been home free if he hadn't happened along when he did. I was just about past the point of caring, and I didn't want this man feeling bad just because he had stumbled into my nightmare of a bad day. I felt a trickle of blood roll down my neck. "Wait!" the dark-haired man called. The sword did stop. I heard the train coming down the track, still about a minute away. "You can let her go," the Nice Guy continued.

"What's the fun in that?" asked Stupidhead.

"Oh, lots of fun, I promise," I piped in.

Both men seemed a little stunned that I had spoken. Then the man behind me hummed a kind of laugh through his nose.

Cute Guy said, "I'll catch up with you two stops down." This was the bargain for my life. I doubted it would work. Imagine my surprise when Sword Guy said, "I'll be there Spike."

I had to roll my eyes at the name. I shot another smile to Mr. Cutie and mouthed "Thanks," at him. Bad Ass sheathed his sword as Spike lowered his gun beside him, still out but inconspicuous to the oncoming train.

My captor kept me between them as he backed into the train's open doors. We got into an empty car. Wonderful. I could see how this would end. The headlines would all have horrid details of the headless woman's body found in the train. News reports would all tease with, "Women on public transportation, will your next ride cost you your life?" and other such nonsense.

Jackass pushed me down to sit on one of the inward facing seats. Again, my legs screamed in agony, but I began to silently laugh. I made little snorting noises through my nose, too tired to be scared. I only wanted this bastard of a day to end, one way or the other. The suspense was only serving to annoy me.

"Are you laughing?" The Criminal asked. I nodded, but refused to make eye contact for fear of dissolving into out and out giggles.

"Aren't you going to beg for your life?" This again sent me into laughter. "What is so funny!" Mean Man demanded. I looked at him from the toes up. I didn't see the sword. Where the hell was he hiding it? I forced myself to calm slightly before staring him in the face.

"It's either laugh or cry after the day I've had, and I'd rather go out laughing," I said with a smile.

"This is nothing," he growled at me, seemingly offended that I wasn't more scared of him.

"No kidding," I shot back, "This has only been the last 15 minutes." I shook my head and bit my lip, trying to stop grinning. We sat in silence for a couple of seconds. I decided to push the envelope of surreal experiences.

"I used to have a bird for a pet, too," I offered. "My parents made me give him back to the pet store when I went away to college. He was too noisy, kind of like yours. He was small and green and blue. A little bastard, actually. He went to another owner who didn't mind all of the noise."

I shrugged my shoulders as The Criminal looked at me as if I had just grown another head. I covered my smile with my hand, ready to just about dissolve into hysterical giggles again.

The Criminal looked unsure as to whether he wanted to continue conversing with me, but ventured, "If I let you go, will you go to the police?"

"The police don't know about you?" I asked, surprised. This guy must trail blood and leave a swath of death and destruction everywhere he went.

"They don't know I'm in this city."

I let out a sigh, still shaky with pent up laughter. I considered it. "Probably not, at least not today. I just want to go home, go to bed, and pretend I slept through today and had a series of nightmares. I've had my fill of police today, anyway."

"My friend wasn't a cop."

My ears stuttered on the word "friend." Whatever. "I know. Like I said, I've had a bad day."

The Criminal's face broke into something that looked like malicious curiosity. "Enlighten me," he purred.

I shot up my eyebrows at him. "What do you care?" I asked.

"I haven't decided if I'm going to kill you yet." Great. My sob story might push him over to take the initiative and put me out of my misery. Tired as I was, some of my survival instincts began to belatedly kick in. I hurriedly went through the "rules" of hostage situations I'd gleaned from talk shows. First, don't let him take you somewhere else.

Oops.

Second, talk to him, tell him about yourself. If he sees you as a person, it's harder to kill you. But I couldn't imagine this guy would have any problems with killing any number of people he had full genealogical histories on. But, I couldn't think of anything I had to lose by telling him my day. Plus, if I was going to die, it would be nice that _someone_ would know what shit I had gone through.

"Ok, if you're sure, here goes." He nodded. "The phone woke me at 5 AM with bad news. My sister is in jail for stalking her ex boyfriend. My parents are hysterical, but I can't help, being that I'm thousands of miles away. I was so mad at her for being so stupid that I couldn't go back to sleep. So, I tried to make coffee, but the machine exploded, literally, and now my entire apartment building smells like burnt rubber. I missed my morning bus by seconds and had to sit there for 20 minutes for the next one while a crazy homeless person yelled insults at me, asked for money, then yelled more insults at me. I missed my morning meeting and my boss chewed me out and nearly fired me. I made a huge mistake on payroll and I spent all afternoon trying to fix it and take a few dozen angry phone calls. There was a scissors incident and I cut myself." I showed him the deep gash across my left palm. "I left work late. I was running across the street to catch the bus and an SUV came out of nowhere and hit me. Hit and run." I pulled up the cuffs of my street-stained pants and showed him the angry red marks that would soon be bruises on my shins. My thighs bore the imprint of the vehicle's bumper. I showed him my raw left elbow from where I rolled off the car and landed on the street. "I had to spend the rest of the afternoon and early evening in a shitty police station making out a report that I know they're not going to act on. Then I got on the elevated train to go home. I got molested, got into a fight, used as a human shield, punched by a bird, cut with a sword, and finally made to relive every goddam last shitty thing that's happened."

It seemed that my 7 stages of Bad Day were coming around again. Blinding anger went to exhaustion, to amused acceptance, to hysterics, back to a kind of tired and hopeless anger. I'd lost count of exactly how many steps this was and I was too tired to care.

The train began to speed up. It had just made a stop. It was now or never.

The Criminal stood, reproducing the sword from what seemed like thin air. I sighed.

He said, "I can't ever recall sparing anyone intentionally. If I was to do it to you, what could you promise me?"

I raised my eyebrows at him. "I have nothing to give."

He smiled deviously. "No, I expect you wouldn't."

I didn't want to die. As a last ditch effort, as the train began slowing for the next stop, I said, "Maybe you'll get some karmic reward. Someday, your life will be spared for a while."

He brought the sword up and slashed it across my neck. I felt nothing. Then I realized I hadn't been cut. The Criminal had expertly trimmed a lock of my hair off of my shoulder. It floated up and then began to fall. He caught it, smelled it, and stuffed it into his pocket. "Hmm. I think I could definitely use that."

The doors opened at the stop and the man backed out. Before the train pulled away, he nodded at me. I gave him a little two-fingered salute. Seconds later, I could have sworn I heard gunshots above the roar and creak of the train.

Day was done. I finally made it back to my stinky, rubber-smelling home. I crawled into bed and pulled my comforter up over my head. I willed the whole day into some kind of crazy nightmare. No one would believe me anyway.

* * *

The end. I'd love to hear what people think. S. 


End file.
